


Happily Ever After

by tuesday



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Adult Peter Parker, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Background Relationships, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Fix-It of Sorts, Future Fic, M/M, Past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Post-Endgame, References to Canonical Character Death, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 03:56:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18612625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/pseuds/tuesday
Summary: In which some things are fixed by cultists bent on summoning Old Ones.  At least, that's what Tony assumes they're trying to do.--Story contains major spoilers for Endgame.





	Happily Ever After

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to duck and LF for letting me flail at them about this movie and my feelings and for encouraging me to write this fic. 
> 
> This is a fix-it of sorts and maybe my last canon compliant-ish future fic. After this, canon divergent is probably where I'll live.
> 
> Content advisories in the end notes.

So the thing about dying was that it was kind of like free time travel.

Not for most people; most people stayed dead. Then again, half the population had gotten the same deal a while back (a very short time ago for Tony), so half plus one was a clear, if marginal majority. Then again, it wasn't like the population had stopped growing while Tony was indisposed, so yeah, not most people. A significant portion of the population understood what Tony was feeling right now, though, knew it was like to feel yourself dying and look upon your loved ones and think, _This is it. This is the end_.

Only to wake up years in the future and find out no, not so much, your story wasn't over yet. Maybe it had a few pages ripped out, but it was ready to resume practically where you left off, everyone else a little older, the world around you changed, but prepared to drop you immediately into the thick of it again.

"No time to explain," Peter said, and for Tony, it had been minutes. He hadn't had time to adjust to Peter's face, animated and alive and unbearably precious, for all that it was now suddenly much older, wreathed in mist rising from the metal and glass coffin Tony had been resting in.

"You're alive," Tony said, lifting his hand to Peter's face, because that one hug in the middle of battle hadn't been enough.

"So are you, and if we want to stay that way, we need to get moving _right now_ , Mr. Stark." Peter held out a hand and hauled Tony to his feet.

"What's happening?" Tony asked. They were in a cramped room with metal walls studded with rusted bolts and divots.

"Long story." Peter pulled Tony through a doorway into a concrete hallway lined with pipes.

"Cliff notes it for me."

"Uh, so you remember how you wielded the Infinity Stones and snapped all those guys into dust? And how before that, the Hulk snapped all of the rest of us back out of dust?" Peter took them left where the corridor split.

"Considering that was today for me, yes, I do recall something like that." Tony's legs were shaky. He kept stumbling over his own feet. He was lightheaded, and his vision blurred at the edges.

"Turns out most people just explode."

"Someone else used the Gauntlet?" What was Tony saying, of course someone else used the Gauntlet.

"They tried." Peter made a gesture with one hand, a fist opening up, fingers spreading wide. "Didn't take."

"And that brings us here, to me alive, how?" Tony stumbled again, falling into Peter's side, and Peter bodily lifted him, putting Tony over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

"Sorry, Mr. Stark, but we're kind of on a schedule here." Peter took off in a half-jog as he continued, in answer to Tony's question, "Apparently necromancy is easier than trying to kidnap the Hulk."

"Please tell me whoever resurrected me doesn't have the Gauntlet and I was just step one."

"I'm sorry, but you know I'm terrible at lying under pressure," Peter said. "It's been three years, but that hasn't changed."

Tony closed his eyes. Three years. That was practically Morgan's whole life. She'd be starting first or second grade. Tony felt sick, and not just because Peter's shoulder was digging into his stomach with every bouncing step.

"Oh, that's not good," Peter said. When Tony opened his eyes, it was to a group of people in robes behind and in front of them. "I don't suppose you'll let us pass without a fight?"

"Return the sacrifice," said one of the, well, cultists. They were cultists, right? They looked like something out of a H.P. Lovecraft novel. Tony expected them to start extolling the joys and benefits of surrendering to the King in Yellow.

"Finders keepers." Peter tightened his grip on Tony. "Hey, Mr. Stark, you don't get motion sick, right?"

"Iron Man," Tony said.

"Good point." And then they were moving, flipping and dashing and occasionally swerving to the side.

It was different from being in an Iron Man suit. Tony had zero control. The only thing keeping him from doing a header into the wall was Peter's iron grip on his body. It was a wild ride. Maybe in other circumstances, Tony could have enjoyed it. In the here and now, he did his best to hold on.

They went bursting through a side door, which let out on an empty parking lot that connected with a little dirt road. To their right was a field. To their left and in front of them were a bunch of trees. Peter took them into the field just in time for a small ship to appear, shedding some sort of cloaking technology. Peter ran a line up to it.

"You're sure about the motion sickness?" Peter asked as he webbed them together. He didn't wait for an answer to say, "We're ready. Time to go." Presumably, someone over his earpiece heard him.

Tearing through the air was even more markedly different than the armor. The wind whipped at their bodies. It shrieked in their ears. Or maybe that was just Tony, screaming his terror and his confusion and his joy, feeling very, very alive.

—

It felt like they were up there forever; it felt like it was over in an instant. It was probably something like fifteen minutes before the bird slowed down, then started to hover. Peter took them up and through a little hatch in the side.

Woozy, hoarse, Tony asked, "Did you ever fix that solvent issue? Or are we stuck together for the next two hours or until someone finds sufficiently sharp kitchen shears?"

"I can't believe you're alive again and you're still razzing me about something that happened when I was fourteen years old."

"You left a whole string of people attached to cars and buildings through the rest of your teens, too," Tony said. "And don't think I didn't notice you avoiding the question."

"There's a solvent," and oh, there was a voice Tony had missed for the brief time he'd been gone. "Whether you want to use it depends on how attached you are to your body hair."

Rhodey stood from the pilot's seat, his bracers a little newer, a little different. He'd taken Tony's absence as an excuse to tinker with his work. Rhodey came forward and wrapped Tony and Peter both in a hug, then stepped back and resumed his place at the controls.

"It's good to see you, but I should probably get us home."

"Where is home these days?" Tony asked. The Avengers Compound hadn't exactly been habitable the last time Tony had seen it.

"For now?" Rhodey smiled. "We're taking you to your home. To the cabin."

"Home." Tony couldn't help the note of pure, naked longing in his voice.

"If you don't want to use the solvent, it'll dissolve on its own before we get there," Peter offered.

Tony declined the solvent. He'd kept his goatee through death and returning to life. He wasn't going to lose it to off-brand Nair now because he'd gotten impatient. It had nothing to do with the excuse to keep his face pressed to Peter's shoulder where it had ended up, comforting in its solidity. Nothing at all.

Peter arranged them on the bench in the back so they were a little more comfortable.

"I'm really glad you're back, Mr. Stark," Peter said quietly.

"Yeah, kid." Tony took a deep breath. "Me, too."

—

So the thing about being dead was that you were dead, and marriage vows didn't really extend past that. Pepper had mourned him, but she had moved on. Good for her. Following his last wishes like the world's best widow. She seemed like she'd mostly been happy, a few more laugh lines faintly creasing her eyes, as beautiful as ever. Of course, when she looked at Tony, she looked pained, hurt, with delight and disbelief and a terrible hope lurking behind that.

"Hey, Pep," Tony said softly, standing like a stranger on his own doorstep.

"Rhodey told me, but I didn't—" Pepper had a hand over her mouth, but she let it drop, reached out to touch Tony's face. "I couldn't let myself believe it." She drew him down into a hug, and it was coming back to Earth all over again, except this time he'd saved the kid. They'd saved everyone.

Tony buried his nose in her hair, inhaling the faint scent of gardenia, and let himself have this for one minute. Then he drew back, drew away, pulled back all his feelings and packed them away, because Rhodey, all apologies, had told him on the way over that this didn't belong to him anymore.

"So where's my best girl?" Tony asked. "Does she—does she know?"

Pepper's smile was tremulous. Her eyes were bright. "Dave's with her out back. I thought—" She sniffed. "I had to make sure you were really—"

Tony's own smile shook. "Yeah. I'm really."

"I'm so—"

"Don't," Tony said quickly, firmly, because he couldn't handle that. He could not let Pepper apologize without losing his shit, and he needed to keep it together. If not for her, then for the little girl waiting in their backyard, unaware she was about to get her father back. "Don't you dare say you're sorry." Tony squeezed her shoulder briefly, there and gone. "I'm happy for you."

"No, you're not," Pepper said softly, kindly.

"No, I'm not," Tony agreed. "But all I ever wanted was for you—for both of you—to be happy, so I'm halfway there." He cut his eyes away, couldn't take another second of this. "Can I see her?"

"Of course you can see her. But let me go first."

Before Pepper went, Tony asked, "Does she remember me?"

Pepper laughed, voice thick, wet. "Did you think I'd let her forget?"

Morgan was in her tent, and when she ducked her head out, she was—it was—

Death was like free time travel, but Tony wanted a refund. She was so big. He'd missed so much. Her eyes were wide. Her lip trembled.

"Dad?" Morgan asked. "Dad, is that really—?"

"Hey, honey." Tony held his arms open. "I'm home."

Morgan nearly knocked him over with the force of her hug.

—

Dave wasn't a bad guy for husband number two. He wasn't mad that the first edition was back to steal the guest bed and every spare second of Morgan's time. Things with Pepper were—

Well.

It was easier not to think about it.

There was a price for saving the world, for returning half the universe and keeping it from being undone. Tony had paid it. He'd pay it again. Honestly, it was a surprise the super hero gig hadn't been the end of him and Pepper a long time ago. There were so many times it nearly was, breaks he was certain were going to be break-ups. The relationship had been worth it. Pepper was one of his best friends, and she'd given him the greatest gift in the world in Morgan.

And if he was still desperately, heartbreakingly in love with his widow, then that was only fair. Days ago in subjective time, she'd been his wife. They'd been going on five years of marriage.

She was going on year two with Dave. Dave wasn't a superhero, though he tried to do his part. He didn't throw himself into life or death fights with the fate of the world at stake. All the lives he saved were on the operating table. They had a steady relationship, a happy one, one built on comfort and trust and keeping their promises to each other.

The truth was, Tony had always known Pepper could do better. Look at her, doing better. He was happy for her. He was going to be happy for her. He'd be happy for her if it killed him.

(And, oh, was it killing him.)

Dave wasn't a bad guy, and Tony was trying to be better. This might have been a fight he could have won, but sometimes it was about knowing when not to fight, when to concede gracefully.

Tony had Morgan, he had a world with a lot more people in it, he had most of a team (and tried and failed not to think of the faces missing). He had free time travel. What the hell did Tony have to complain about?

—

"I think you should move out," Rhodey said seriously.

"Do you think—" Tony shook his head, played with the peeling label on the bottle of beer in his hands. They were sitting on the bench by the lake, looking out over the water. Tony had limited himself to one, but there was that little voice that said it was morning, that it would be hours yet before Morgan got home from school. "Never mind. Of course I'm getting in the way here. This can't be healthy for them, having a dead guy show up and take up residence in the room they were thinking about trying to turn into a new nursery."

"I think it's not healthy for _you_." Rhodey bumped their shoulders together. "Stay if you want to. They're not going to kick you out and they don't want you to leave. But, Tony, you look miserable. I have a perfectly good couch for you to be miserable on if you'd like a change in scenery."

Tony looked down. "I'll consider it."

—

Tony considered it. He decided, no matter how much it felt like tearing open his heart every morning when he woke up in the wrong bed, that he would stay.

Yeah, it was shitty. Yeah, he should let Pepper and the new guy have their space. But it wasn't just Pepper's home and it wasn't just the cabin Tony had designed and built for the two of them.

It was where Morgan lived.

It wasn't going to be for forever. Tony had plans for a new cabin ( _a bigger cabin, a better cabin,_ a part of him that didn't know when to stop piped up, but he'd settle for a place to lay his head without the memories and the salt in the wound of knowing his wife was sleeping with someone else just down the hall) a ways down the lake, close, but not too close.

Tony would stay long enough to get a real start on the new place.

Then the cultists came back, and Tony realized he didn't get this, either.

—

"In retrospect, it's pretty obvious I'd go home, even if Pepper remarried." Tony blasted another guy in a robe with a spare gauntlet Pepper had lying around. "That or they were looking for hostages to draw me out and got lucky."

"Hang in there," Rhodey said. "We'll be there soon."

Morgan and the replacement were barricaded upstairs. Pepper had kept the Rescue armor in the barn, but she had another gauntlet and was taking the other side of the house, making certain no one circled around behind them. Tony was standing in the door to the porch and wondering how easy it was to replace glass windows these days.

"Take your time. We've got this under control." One of the cultists did something with his hands. They glowed orange, then spat red. It was aimed at the second floor. "I take it back. Get over here before I murder every last one of these assholes."

Rhodey et al got there eventually. The cultists were even alive, mostly. Most of the way alive. Up to half alive. At least a quarter. Sure, they needed medical attention, but Tony had been lenient, all things considered.

—

They _all_ moved out. But Tony went his separate way from the rest of them.

Tony went down on one knee, hugging his daughter goodbye for a long, long time. "It's just a little while, sweetie. It's not goodbye, it's I'll see you soon."

"I don't want you to go," Morgan said.

She was her mother's daughter. Tony was going to ever be a disappointment, even when he didn't want to, even when everything he ever wanted was right there in front of him. Morgan was his whole world, now, but he had to protect that. Staying nearby was only drawing a target on her, on the rest of her family.

Tony pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Be good for your mom."

"I'm always good," Morgan said.

Tony smiled. "No, you're not." Before Morgan could protest, he said, "You're _the best_."

—

"When you said I could sleep on your couch, you didn't mention it would be in the Avengers HQ's new lobby."

"It's not that new," Rhodey said. "And I'm not offering the lobby, I'm offering the break room."

"Oh, yeah, that's much better. Instead of just anyone wandering in to see me in my underwear, it'll be my friends and colleagues."

"Yeah, I thought you'd like that," Rhodey said with the hint of a smile playing about his lips.

"Did you not give the new Avengers rooms of their own?"

"Most of them have homes of their own to get to." Rhodey rubbed the back of his neck. "As for the rest, I'll ask around tomorrow to see if anyone's willing to share."

"You can't give up half your bed for your best friend? Who has recently come back from the dead and has a bad back to boot? Do you really want me to break my spine on this piece of junk you fished out of the dumpster?"

"First of all, that piece of junk was kindly donated by one of the new guys." That didn't narrow it down. They were all new guys where they weren't new ladies. "Second, both sides of my bed are presently accounted for."

"Wait, wait, I've been back for weeks," two weeks made a plural, after all, "and I'm only just now hearing that you're seeing someone?"

"It's not that serious," said Carol, who was one of the new people as far as Tony was concerned, making her way into Tony's new bedroom to grab some late night coffee.

Rhodey gestured at her as if to say, _See?_ "It's not that serious." He handed her cream when she held out a hand. "We're taking it slow, enjoying things as they come."

Carol smiled, a tiny, mischievous thing as she stirred her coffee. "There's certainly a lot of coming."

Tony choked on his own coffee. His own smile was wide. "I see. That's how it is."

"That's how it is," Rhodey agreed.

—

It took two days for someone to walk in on Tony in his underwear. In his defense, he was changing, and it wasn't like the door had a lock.

"Oh! Mr. Stark! I'm so—I'm so sorry, I didn't, the door wasn't—" Peter held his hands up. "Not that it's _your_ fault. I definitely should have knocked."

"Mi casa es su break room. Public property. Don't worry about it." Tony finished drawing up his pants. He started doing up the buttons of his shirt. "If you feel that bad, you can make me coffee."

It was weird, how Peter knew how to do that now. When he was sixteen, he'd tried to be helpful a few times while visiting the Avengers Compound and make a fresh pot. He'd forgotten the filter the first time. He'd tried again weeks later and nearly given Tony a heart attack with how strong he'd brewed it. The last time, he'd put in decaf, at which point Tony had forbidden him from making it until he was willing to drink it himself.

"You can use my room if you want," Peter offered. "I mean, my stuff is in it, but I have a room at May's, too, and it's not like I stay the night here that often."

Tony considered it. "I wouldn't want to put you out."

"You wouldn't be," Peter said, achingly sincere.

"Don't move your stuff. This is temporary." Tony gathered up his effects, a few suits Pepper hadn't thrown out or donated or given away, some t-shirts Pepper had kept to sleep in. "Just until the rest of the cultists are rounded up."

"You know they're not actually cultists, right?"

"If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and runs around in duck-like clothes, I'm going to call it a cultist." Tony looked around to see if he was missing any spare socks, but it looked like he'd gotten everything. "Okay, kid, show me the new digs."

—

Peter's room had a twin bed, a desk, and a few personal touches here and there, but mostly it looked like he really didn't spend that much time there. On the desk were some photos. Peter and May, standing side by side. Peter and someone his age, probably that friend of his, arms thrown around each other's shoulders. Peter and Tony, the same photo Tony had kept on the kitchen shelf by the picture of his dad.

Tony picked up the frame. He thought, _It was worth it. It was all worth it._

"I, uh, that's my copy, but. If you want, I have the other one in my bedroom at May's. After the funeral, Mrs.—uh—Pepper gave it to me." Peter rubbed the back of his neck. "You can have it back."

"Why don't we worry about that once I have a place to actually put it?" Tony put the photo down. He turned to face Peter fully. "Really, kid, thanks. This is nice."

"I've seen your nice." Peter's smile was a little bit rueful, a little bit shy. "This isn't the same borough."

"Trust me." Tony patted Peter on the shoulder. "This is much better than the alternative."

"I guess so." Peter's eyes were shadowed.

"I know so." Tony made himself smile, affected an easy grin. "Pretty sure that break room couch really was fished out of the dumpster."

—

Peter had said he didn't spend much time in his room at AHQ, but the bed smelled like him. Tony could bury his face in the pillow and smell Old Spice and cheap drugstore shampoo. The mattress wasn't as comfortable as when Tony had bankrolled the Avengers gig, but it was comfortable enough. His feet didn't hang off the end. There were no springs digging into his back. It was definitely better than the break room couch.

In the privacy of a dark room with a locked door, no danger of anyone walking in in search of a midnight snack or a seven year old waking up and wanting to climb into bed with him in need of comfort, Tony stared up at the ceiling and let himself feel it, let it hit him.

He'd died. He'd given up everything, and it had been worth it—it had _absolutely_ been worth it—but he was never getting those years back nor the life he'd had. It was gone.

It was time to build a new one.

—

In the morning, Tony tracked Rhodey down in his office and said, "I want my armor and workshop back."

"You can take as long as you need," Rhodey said.

"It's been three years. I think I've waited long enough."

Rhodey shook his head, but he was smiling. "I'll send some people with you to get everything from the cabin." He pulled out the arc reactor with the nanite housing. "But here's the armor. Welcome back, Iron Man."

"Were you carrying that around with you this whole time?"

"Don't be ridiculous." Rhodey put his hands in his pockets. "I retrieved it from the vault the second those guys attacked your house."

Tony stroked the glass casing. "It's not my house anymore."

"Maybe not, but you can't say you weren't thinking about getting a little payback for anyone who looked sideways at your family."

Tony didn't say they weren't his, either. It wasn't really true. They were his. They were just someone else's now, too.

"So where were we on tracking down the Stones?"

Rhodey caught him up.

—

Things had changed, were currently changing. The Avengers had a bunch of new kids, plus a number of others Tony felt like had only recently showed up. He kept getting hit over and over with the time travel thing.

Rhodey was in charge. Peter was actually a senior Avenger now, for all he was barely twenty. Carol was around on an as needed basis, though she was around more right now for training up one of the new people, a woman named Monica. Strange popped in and out. Scott Lang and Hope Pym helped out on the big stuff. Wanda rounded out their senior staff.

Thor was off with the Guardians of the Galaxy now. Bruce was across the country with a new West Coast branch. Clint had moved his family there and taken up a training position. Steve had grown old and retired, and how weird was that? Natasha was gone, but there were memorials both here and at the West Coast HQ.

Sam and Barnes were doing some sort of second honeymoon across the US. Falcon was Captain America now. T'Challa and Wakanda were more involved in the world, but he had bigger concerns than joining a superhero team. Everyone had something going. The world kept moving.

Tony tried to move with it.

—

"How did they even get their hands on the Stones in the first place?" Tony asked. "You said Steve took them all back."

"Unfortunately," Rhodey looked tired, "we weren't the only people who applied time travel to it."

"How many branching universes do you think were created?" Tony asked, but his focus was stuck on the thought of having to do it all over again, the gripping fear that it could all be undone.

"Too many." Rhodey rubbed at his face. "I'm grateful for them bringing you back, but I wish they'd cut out the rest of it."

Tony held up a hand, had the nanite casing make another gauntlet, a better one, just a repulsor and protective metal. "I can help with that."

—

In the end, he didn't need to.

Someone had followed the cultists back from the past. A few someones. At first they thought the West Coast Avengers had gotten to the hideaway they were raiding first.

"You could have told us you sent Clint into the field," Rhodey said. "I thought we were coordinating this."

"I didn't," Bruce said over the comms.

"Tell me that's not Kate in there," Rhodey said. "She's not done with her training."

"I'm telling you, I have eyes on my whole team. None of us is there." And yet there were arrows flying out of one of the windows to pin the cultists that were fleeing outside.

"I don't think that's our Clint," Tony said.

"Oh, wow, that's Black Widow," Peter exclaimed from his position inside the building. "Wow, that's—oh, ouch. I think she just broke that guy's neck with her legs."

"Nat?" came their Clint's broken voice over the comms.

"We, uh, we don't have anyone over there, but we're sending a couple people now," Bruce said.

Part of the backwoods compound exploded. Tony was too old for this. He felt like he was having heart palpitations.

"Webs, tell me that you're in a different part of the building," Tony demanded.

"I'm in a different part of the building," Peter said, but he sounded breathless, pained.

Fuck holding back to corral anyone escaping. Rhodey had done this for three years without him.

"You've got this," Tony said. "I'm going in."

"Tony, you know you're not—shit." Rhodey sounded resigned. "Yeah, okay, I've got this."

"We'll be there soon," Bruce said.

—

"Well, this is certainly better than Thanos following us back," Rhodey said. They'd brought the other Clint, Nat, and a young Steve with them back to HQ to crowd around a conference room table and debrief, along with a second Hulk who'd eventually shrunk down to Bruce Banner when Hulk got bored with all the talking. They were pretty much done with everything important.

"This is what we get for chasing those guys through an unknown portal," the other Clint said. "More spooky magic bullshit."

Natasha looked resigned. "I should've known Budapest wouldn't be the end of it."

"At least it's not more Chitauri," Steve said.

"Sorry, I'm still stuck on the implications of time travel," the other Bruce said.

"It's more like universe hopping at this point. When you make a big enough change, it branches. You can make a closed loop, but this," Tony gestured at them all, "isn't it. The upshot is we don't have to worry about not changing the past. I've got a whole list for you guys."

"Of course you do," Natasha said.

"Don't you think that's a little reckless?" Cap said.

"The science on it is sound." Bruce tapped at the tablet they'd given him. Cap looked unconvinced.

"Point one: Barnes is alive," Tony said.

Cap looked a little concussed. "I look forward to that list."

Then their Bruce and Clint were rushing into the room, and the debrief portion of the evening was definitely over.

—

"You know," Tony said later, a small pile of empties building up beside him, stretched out on the break room couch again. "I'd wondered why they'd skipped straight to necromancy when they had time travel at their fingertips. Why not engage in a little light kidnapping to add to the time thievery?"

Tony smiled humorlessly. "It's nice to know there's a timeline out there where Cap had my back that whole time."

"He was there for you in the end," Rhodey said, sitting against Tony's feet.

"Can you picture what it's going to be like for them? Actually being prepared?"

Rhodey took a swig from his own can. "I can picture it."

"Are we getting drunk in here?" Carol asked, popping her head in.

" _We're_ getting drunk," Tony said. He raised a can in salute. "I don't know if you can."

"Peter, get in here!" she called down the hallway. "We're getting out the good stuff."

Tony considered pointing out Peter's age. Then he considered the entirety of his college experience, plus grad school. He shrugged and watched with interest as Carol went rummaging in the cabinets.

"Want me to go grab everyone else, make a party of it?" Carol asked.

"Not really in a partying mood," Tony said. His younger self would've been horrified to see him now.

Peter and Carol grabbed a pair of chairs from the kitchen table crammed up against one wall and dragged them over. Carol had a huge bottle and two tiny glasses. She topped them up and handed one to Peter.

"What are we drinking to?" Carol asked.

"To what could've been," Rhodey said, clinking his can against Tony's.

"To what we actually have," Tony said and tapped the can against Carol's glass.

"I'll drink to that." Rhodey suited word to deed.

They drank a lot to a lot of things. At some point, Rhodey abandoned his place on the couch to steal Peter's chair, and Peter ended up on the couch with Tony's head in his lap. Peter was buzzed, relaxed enough to start absentmindedly playing with Tony's hair. It was nice. It was very, very nice.

Tony hated to sit up, to brush Peter's hands away and say, "I'm for bed."

"Good idea," Carol slurred. She was half hanging off of Rhodey. "Very, very good idea. I see why they say you're a genius."

"Pretty sure that's not why _he_ wants to go to bed," Rhodey said, the most sober of them. Tony found it hard to muster any pity for him when he was about to take his lover to bed and Tony was going to sleep alone. They left, Carol humming happily to herself.

Peter flopped over onto his side on the couch. "You were right. My bed is much nicer than this."

Tony sighed. "Come on, up. You can take your bed back for the night."

"Nooo," Peter said, though he let Tony chivvy him upright. "It's yours now. Your bed."

Tony was old. He'd stuck to beer, but it was hitting hard. That had to be why he said, "For tonight, it can be our bed."

"What?" Peter's eyes were wide, almost hopeful.

"We'll share." Tony was too drunk for this, because he just kept talking. "It'll be like college, but with less sucking dick."

Peter went pink. "I, uh, I'd be okay with—"

"No," Tony said quickly. "Nope. Not going there. We're going to sleep together, not _sleep together_."

"Okay, but for the record, I am in college and I'd be very happy to su—" Tony clapped a hand over Peter's mouth.

"Not tonight," Tony said quietly. "Please."

Peter nodded slowly. His eyes had cleared a little. They were considering. When Tony removed his hand, Peter said, "Okay. We'll share, but I'll keep my mouth to myself."

Tony closed his eyes and told himself that that was absolutely for the best.

—

Tony woke up with a hangover and Peter's hair in his mouth. Peter was drooling on Tony's neck. He had a hand up Tony's shirt. Tony lay there for several minutes and wondered how life could simultaneously be this great and this horrible. Peter's breathing changed.

"Good morning," Tony said.

"I think I'm dying," Peter said. Then, lifting his head, "I. Did I offer to give you a blowjob last night?"

"Not in so many words." Tony couldn't resist the temptation, put a hand in Peter's hair and petted a little. "But kind of, yeah."

Peter dropped his head again. "Can we pretend that I was just that drunk?"

"I don't know." Tony hummed, thoughtful. "Did you ever want me to take you up on it?"

"I think I'm too hungover for this," Peter said. "It's—that almost sounds like you might—that at some point—"

"I'm a mess," Tony said plainly. "I'm going to be a mess for a while. But at some point ... well, I'll still be a mess, because I'm always a mess, but I will be a mess who's ready for a relationship again." Tony cleared his throat. "If that's something you wanted to try. It doesn't have to go that way. You're young. You have your whole life ahead of you. If all you want is a drunken, no strings blowjob, well, it's a guarantee I'll be drunk enough to proposition you in the future, too."

"I'd like that," Peter said. "The, uh, the first thing, not the blowjob. Not that I won't take a blowjob! I would definitely—that is, if you wanted to, but with strings—"

Tony was too hungover to be laughing, to feel this lighthearted with joy.

"Can we just go back to sleep?" Peter asked.

"Let's get some water in you first," Tony said.

—

By the time Tony got up, the building was abuzz with activity. They'd recovered all the Stones and figured out where and when they had come from and were about to send them back. Tony was categorically forbidden from being part of the courier service. Apparently Steve had ruined it for the rest of them, and anyone with a compelling reason to find a spot in the past and stay there was not allowed to go. Tony smiled ruefully, admiringly, to himself.

"It would be another timeline, though, even if I popped back up right after I died," Tony said. "I wouldn't do that. I have a daughter here."

He'd get those three years, yeah, but they wouldn't be his Pepper or his Morgan anymore. He'd be leaving his Morgan behind.

"Sorry, but we're not budging on this," Rhodey said.

"I don't mind," Tony said. "I've had more than enough of time travel."

Tony was only too happy to live in the present, one day at a time.

—

Morgan, Pepper, and the new guy came out of hiding. They moved into a new house, closer to Dave's work, and Tony got a place right next to them. Time passed, one day a time.

Eventually, enough had passed to wear down the pain, to smooth over the jagged edges. Tony turned to Peter, seated next to him at AHQ, and said, "Hey. I'm still a mess. But if you were still up for it—"

"Yes," Peter said, sudden, immediate.

Tony smiled. He touched Peter's cheek with the tips of his fingers. "You don't know what I was going to say."

"I know exactly what you were going to say, and the answer is yes." Peter put his hands on Tony's shoulders. He leaned in. "Yes, please."

Tony kissed him, and it felt like a long time coming. Maybe things weren't perfect. But Peter was alive. Tony was alive. He'd lost three years, but he'd also gained the rest of his life.

He planned to make it a happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> Content advisories: Canonical character death, some temporary, some permanent. Barely underaged drinking. Drunk people in a relationship having sex. Drunk people not in a relationship offering to have sex. Rolling around in Tony having been temporarily dead and losing the life he'd had prior to dying. Lots of background ships. Background character death. Canon-typical violence.


End file.
